THE, NE. YORIER  ROM ten to five he deals with cases as they come up. A murder has been committed. One o£ the best detectives in the department, standing at midnight in front of a Coffee Pot Lunch, has been shot dead. Instantly the familiar Coughlin procedure, the method of catching crooks by "in- formation," begins. Records are overhauled. On what cases has the dead detective served? Who would be likely to have it in for him? Clearly the murder was a paid "gun job." What "mob" is now offering gunmen to hire? John D. Coughlin considers questions such as these; then he sends out for suspects. In due course of time certain thick-featured gentry will be led before him and he, hour after hour, interminably, will ask questions: Q. Do you know Rudolph Nesser? A. Ugh-hugh. Q. Where were you when Nesser fired the shot? A. I didn't hear no shot. Q. Where were you when you saw Detective Sullivan ? A. In Dooley's Coffee Pot Lunch. Clues, o£ course, are nice things to have--very helpful indeed, when you can get them. John D. is not un- aware that an able exploitation of the power o£ the clue has enabled Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to invest a con- siderable fortune in spirit photography. But for himselfwell, he'd rather have five minutes alone with a crimi- nal than a bushel£ul of finger prints. His method is quite simple. He knows that even if none o£ the men brought before him had an actual hand in the crime they are likely to know who did have a hand in it. A few words let slip in his office may set a detective knocking at a door in Montreal, climbing a gilded balcony in San Francisco's Chinatown, or picking his way along a honkey-tonk street in Tia Juana. It was information gathered thus, patiently, painfully extracted from stubborn "fall guys," * that led to the arrest of the "Radio Burglar," terror of Queens, o£ the Diamond brothers, of Richard Reese Whitte- more and his mob, and many another pimply gun-toter. Q. Was Rudolph Nesser in this res- taurant with you? A. Ugh-hugh. Q. What ? A. I said yes, Inspector. • Crook term for criminals who tell what they know in return for a promise of immunity. "Whooy dearie! Ain't you takin  a lot for granted?  Q. That's a lie. Come clean or it won't do you no good at the trial. Where were you when Nesser shot Sullivan? A. I was in the Coffee Pot Lunch. John D. uses no rubber-hose meth- ods, blackjackings or bastinados. But there are other ways of making a criminal talk which John D. applies. His training has been thorough. B ORN in Yorkville, son of Patrol- man and Mrs. William Cough- he soon moved to the Bronx, lin, of the recess yard at Public School No. 74 until he left that institution to emerge, at nineteen, as.an appren- tice of the plastering and building Just at the time when it was rapid- ly becoming evident to Coughlin that lime, sand, and water, mixed together, not necessarily make money, Theodore Roosevelt, then Police Commissioner, issued a plea for able- bodied men to join the force. John Coughlin's ability, first as a rookie patrolman, then as a catcher of scut- tle-thieves, soon led to his elevation to the pickpocket squad and an assign- ment to the race tracks near New Standing in the crowds at Belmont and Aqueduct and Jamaica he kept a wary eye out for dips while the band played and slender horses galloped in the sun. At the tracks he managed to con- tract certain friendships which were to help him inestimably later men on both sides of the wall, bulls and yeggmen, dicks and rogues. There was a dapper Celt with a round pink face who controlled the most elaborate private detective agency in the world. There was a betting commissioner called "Honest Frank" James whose brother, Jesse, had already paid his debt to the mail trains. There was a polite little gambler who carried an umbrella on even the sunniest days and whose later interest in baseball, beginning in the spring of 1919, co- incided curiously with the scandal that involved the World's Series of that year. There were Wall Street men-- perhaps no policeman in the history of the city has made so many friends in the tall buildings below Fulton Street. He has the gift of composure, and a wry, grainy wit. Even knaves, who are not John Coughlin's friends, often think they are. He has developed certain formulas for dealing with his subordinates. The younger members of the force he treats with a sort of exacerbated cour- tesy, listens with apparent belief to their tales of heroic captures and as- tute pursuits, rates them furiously for their errors, treats them to lunch at White's or Luchow's. Newspaper men who go to him for information often find him talking on the telephone. "What about that safe job in Brooklyn? ... $20,000, eh? ... Yes. Ripped the door off .... Gly- cerine? Oh, forgot 'era, did they? . . . $500 worth of burglars' tools.